Boston
by Pennilyn Novus
Summary: The end of the war has come at last. Voldemort has been defeated but at a terrible cost. After the final battle, Ginny thinks about what she’s lost, and Harry, and the plans they made for after the war. What will she do now that life must go on?


**A/N: Thanks to Clara Minutes for her speedy and helpful beta reading. **

**Additional Disclaimer: Based roughly on the song Boston, by Augustana. **

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Boston

Ginny stood, bewildered and lost, at the end of the drive leading to the Burrow. She gazed back at the ramshackle house, overwhelmed by her feelings of loss and sorrow. The house was bustling, packed with people fretting quietly from room to room. The quiet, mournful murmur started after the final battle, after it was confirmed that Voldemort had fallen. That Harry had sacrificed himself.

Ginny had known, even as the battle erupted around them, that Harry hadn't destroyed all the Horcruxes, that he wasn't ready to face Voldemort. She'd known, even as she'd been locked in a life-or-death struggle with a masked Death Eater, the instant that Harry succeeded in destroying the last Horcrux. The ground shook and the Death Eaters collapsed as one, howling an unearthly keening while clutching their Dark Marks in agony. And at the center of the battle, a brilliant white light began to glow, throbbing and blazing until it was blinding to behold. As Ginny turned her face away, she felt it, inside, the giant sigh of relief, the overwhelming feeling of peace and happiness, and then – nothing.

Ginny had crossed the world over with Harry, and Hermione and Ron, looking for the Horcruxes, and after all the time, she'd grown to sense each of them. As soon as she couldn't sense Harry, she knew what had happened.

When she stumbled forward, dodging the writhing black robed figures, she'd known already that it was too late, that Harry had gone. When she reached the epicenter of the battle, the blazing light had long faded, leaving nothing but a smoldering, barren crater. No bodies, no wands, nothing to indicate that two wizards had battled to the death. Just one pair of broken, abandoned spectacles tossed to the side of the crater's edge. Choking back a ragged sob, Ginny had dropped to her knees and reverently scooped up Harry's round glasses.

Now, the house was full of people torn between rejoicing and weeping. Voldemort destroyed, but at a terrible price.

Her eyes swept to the makeshift Quidditch pitch just behind the tree line, where just days before, in an effort to relieve tensions, Harry had suggested a game of pick-up Quidditch. How alive and carefree Harry had looked, swooping and diving and flying and shouting with laughter… Ginny wanted that memory always to be the way she remembered Harry, her Harry. The leafy treetops were bathed in the warm light of sunset; the world looked so full of hope and prosperity.

Ginny blinked her eyes, feeling the fresh sting of tears in her already red and swollen eyes. She swiped at her eyes angrily, knowing full well that Harry would never want her to fall apart like this. He'd tell her to go back inside and celebrate. He would grimace at the newly coined 'Harry Potter Day', but he'd bear it with a rueful, shy smile and tell her not to sit out here alone and mourn.

"I can't, Harry," she whispered raggedly. "I can't go back in there."

She patted her cloak pocket, feeling the light weight of her shrunken trunk, and tightened her grip on Harry's Firebolt. With one last look at her childhood home, Ginny turned her back and gazed at the azure summer sky.

"Ginny?"

Ginny closed her eyes, wishing she'd just hopped on her broom and flown off when she'd first stepped outside, instead of taking the foolish moment to reminisce and memorize the image of the Burrow. Without turning around, Ginny sighed, "Yes, Professor?"

Her former head of house came to stand beside her, and regarded the flaming sunset silently for a moment, sniffling slightly. When it became clear to her that McGonagall did not intend to broach the silence, Ginny prodded, "Was there something you wanted, Professor?"

The old witch bowed her head, removing her pointed hat and wiping her watery eyes. "Ginny, you should be inside with your family, not out here isolating yourself."

"What's left of my family, you mean?"

McGonagall turned her surprised face to Ginny, looking taken aback by the venom in the young witch's voice. After a moment of quiet speculation, which Ginny met forcefully and unwaveringly, McGonagall dropped her gaze to the broom in Ginny's left hand.

"Ginny? Are you going flying – now?" she questioned in a choked voice.

Ginny clenched Harry's broom tightly in her left hand, feeling the ring on her finger cutting into her skin. After a moment, she muttered, "I need to clear my head."

"Don't you think it would be better for you to go inside –"

"You don't know me!" Ginny hissed sharply. "What do you care?"

Professor McGonagall stepped back, a surprised look crossing her tearstained face. "I only meant that you might be better served being around people who feel your loss as you do."

"You don't know…you don't know _what_ it feels like," Ginny cried out, her anguish rising to the surface. "When he fell, I _felt_ him die. Nobody else feels my loss the way I do!"

McGonagall raised a shaking hand to touch Ginny's shoulder. Ginny recoiled and mounted the broom, unwilling to delay her flight any longer. Shaking slightly, she kicked off from the ground.

Professor McGonagall's voice faded to nothing as Ginny ascended rapidly, and within moments, the forlorn figure at the end of the drive looked like a toy doll, her words lost in the rush of wind. From this height, Ginny could see all the grounds surrounding the Burrow. She had a clear view of the Quidditch pitch where she and Harry had flown as a team against Ron and Charlie just days earlier, while her mother and Hermione stood beneath, looking at the remains of the Weasley family.

From this height, Ginny gazed down at the back garden, and the small, babbling brook where she and Harry had shared the first of many beautiful, private afternoons. Her eyes blurred with tears and Ginny blinked, before wheeling the broom away and rocketing north, over the town of Ottery St. Catchpole, not caring much who might see her. She saw ahead of her in the distance the faint wisps of smoke that still rose from the Lovegood home, or what remained of it. She turned the broom away again and headed to the east for a bit until she saw the long burned remnants of the Diggory home. Feeling close to panic now, Ginny wheeled to the north again and shot up into a cloud glowing rosy in the sunset.

After she paid her final respects at the field, she'd be off again.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

It was very late into the night before Ginny touched down on the desecrated earth, which had been cleared of all debris and bodies in the hours since the battle. No one appeared anxious to linger over the field where so many had died, and for that, Ginny was grateful.

With only a touch of apprehension, Ginny let her feet guide her to the blackened crater. She lowered herself at the center and put her right hand to the ground, digging her fingers into the burnt earth. She brought her left hand to her face, and pressed it over her eyes as images of the last few desperate moments of Harry Potter flashed through her mind.

_As clearly as if he stood before her, she saw him locked, hand in hand with Voldemort, struggling to twist the wand from the Dark wizard's fingers. Random spells shot from the end of the ancient looking wand, red and green and silver sparks flying through the air. All at once, Harry wrapped his hand around the Ravenclaw wand and twisted. The brittle wand snapped, and Voldemort howled in rage. _

"_That's five!" Harry roared before shoving Voldemort away from him. "Two to go, Tom," he panted, his bloodied chest heaving with the effort of his labored breath. _

Ginny felt a tear drop from the tip of her nose onto her hand, and she sniffled.

_Harry brandished his wand at Voldemort again. "Two to go," he breathed, shaking slightly. Voldemort lunged forward, withdrawing a fresh wand from inside his robes. Harry was ready, and threw his hand up, deflecting the curse silently. Voldemort roared angrily, his eyes flashing red. Ginny saw, for a fleeting moment as Harry moved his wand and muttered the incantation for the Killing Curse, the thumb on his left hand rub the band of gold on his ring finger._

Another silent tear fell onto the back of her hand.

_The bolt of green light caught Voldemort in the face and he dropped back, a surprised look of horror on his face. Harry stared with a look of triumph and defeat, upon the wizard who had marked him so long ago as his equal. _

_A dark shape began to twist and writhe above the dead Dark lord's body and Harry took a deep breath. He turned his wand on himself. "One to go," he whispered brokenly, closing his eyes. _

"Oh, Harry," Ginny sobbed raggedly.

_A beam of brilliant white light shot from the end of Harry's wand and wrapped around him. He opened his eyes as the ground began to shake, and looked to the sky, a look of relief and sorrow and peace and happiness lighting up his face. The blinding white light expanded, throbbing with radiance as Harry sank to his knees. The light overtook the shadow struggling to free itself from Voldemort's corpse, and then the corpse itself, and Harry dropped to his back, his eyes unseeing and blank. Then the world exploded white around Ginny and the ground gave a massive roll. Then there was nothing. _

After a moment, Ginny uncovered her eyes and stared down at her hand. She closed her fist around a handful of the baked earth and withdrew a small bottle from the pocket of her cloak. She carefully deposited the dirt into the bottle and returned the vessel to her inner pocket.

"I'm going, Harry. Just like we planned." Ginny sat for a moment longer before slowly rising to her feet, twitching her robes to shake off the dirt.

She stepped back and looked at the sad, defeated battleground where Harry had taken his last breath. Before she even knew what she was doing, Ginny withdrew her wand and pointed it at the barren grave. From the end of her wand, a pale golden glow spread across the ground, creeping over the edges of the crater, surrounding her. Moments later, a pale green mist pushed out of the dirt, and grew into hundreds of lilies, daffodils, irises and violets. Within a minute, the garden spread beyond the crater, spilling out onto the rest of the bloodstained field.

"Be at peace Harry. I will not forget you…" She tilted her tear streaked face to the sky. "Rest easy now, my love." Her voice broke and through her tightened throat, she just managed to squeak out, "I love you so…"

Then silently, Ginny mounted the Firebolt again, careful not to trod on any of the flowers, and floated for a moment above the memorial. She turned once more to the sky and flew up into the stars, not looking back. It wasn't that long of a journey ahead of her, flying first to the coast, and then catching a portkey across the ocean. By the time the sun rose on Hogsmeade, Ginny Potter would be long gone.

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"Where should we go?" Harry asked absently, as they lay in the grass on the makeshift Quidditch pitch, long after the rest had gone back inside.

Ginny paused, considering the stars, as she rested her head on Harry's shoulder and gazed at the sky. "We could go to America," she mused at last.

Harry hummed and ran his fingers through her hair, which was still slightly sweaty from the Quidditch game. "Salem?" he pondered.

Ginny turned her face to his and studied his profile, a faint blue in the moonlight. "That's near Boston, isn't it?"

"I think so," Harry said. "Sounds like a good place to start a new life, right?" He snuggled closer to her and took her left hand into his. "Mrs. Potter," he whispered in her ear, "shall we go to Boston?"

Ginny said nothing, knowing Harry still didn't know how to remove the Horcrux within himself. This planning, it was almost cruel, knowing it might all be for naught if the final battle occurred before the Order had found a way to remove that bit of Voldemort's soul that had so firmly entwined itself with Harry's own.

"Ginny?" Harry said, as though reading her thoughts. "It'll be fine. We'll figure it out. I swear it."

"We'll start that new life," Ginny said at last, "where no one knows your name, or mine."

"That's the spirit," Harry said with a happy sigh, rolling onto his side to gaze at her. Ginny lifted her face to his and caught his lips in a quiet, chaste kiss.

"I'm so tired, Harry," Ginny whispered when they parted.

"Should we go in, then?" Harry asked at once, pulling himself onto his elbow.

Ginny smiled sadly and shook her head, overwhelmed by the sudden burn of tears in her eyes. "Tired of being here," she clarified. "Tired of this place – tired of being in danger, and I'm tired of the reporters, and I – I can't…" she choked off, blinking the tears from her eyes.

"I know," Harry answered quietly, kissing her tears away. "That's why we're leaving all of this behind."

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Ginny sat on the sandy hill and stared out at the churning, gray ocean. Silently, she looked eastward, across the huge expanse of water, and waited. She had sat on this dune all night – since arriving by portkey – and watched the waves crashing against the rocky pier in the humid, early summer moonlight. As the sky began to grow light in the east, Ginny rose to her feet, her face streaked with tears. Her throat constricted painfully as the pink glow reflected off the white capped waves, making the murky New England waters shimmer radiantly.

She stood in silent vigil as the sun crept over the edge of the ocean, until it finally emerged completely and began its voyage across the sky. Then Ginny turned away from the ocean and looked at the row of quaint boarding houses lining the Muggle street.

"I'm here, Harry," she whispered, twirling her ring on her finger, "where no one knows my name."

Then, shouldering the broom, Ginny left the beach, shaking sand from her shoes, and set off down the boardwalk.

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**A/N: Thanks for reading! Leave me a review and let me know what you thought!**

**Thanks again to my beta, Clara Minutes**


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